Stockholm Stacked / Visiondivision

Our friends from Visiondivision have envisioned a creative solution to respond to Stockholm’s lack of housing. While the city is growing rapidly, the pace of new construction for residences is quickly falling behind demand. Due to this lack of housing, the core of Stockholm has grown to be defined by expensive apartments, while the outer edges for those who can’t afford such prices. For Stockholm Stacked, Visiondivision responds to this segregated city by proposing a change in planning regulations to eliminate height restrictions on courtyard typologies, so as to utilize the urban spaces for efficiently and effectively. After all, “Who wants to move to a city where it is impossible to get an apartment? Which companies wants to invest in a city where their employees may have a hard time to find a place to stay? Which exchange students wants to study in a city where all the free time available will go to find a small flat with a decent rent?” asks the firm. More about the project after the break.

“Instead of building in the outskirts of the city we propose to build where most people actually wants to live,” explained the team.

The housing solution calls for the existing buildings that are facing the streets to be kept untouched, and a new housing tower will shoot up from the courtyard space. The new court yard buildings will have typical Stockholm facades, sampling the surrounding area’s architecture. “We propose a new way of looking at the city, which at a first glance from the street looks already complete and finished, but that actually hides over hundreds of new potential sites in the inner city,” explained the designers.

Visiondivison sees this new dense city as a way to better the urban environment, as the new houses can benefit the surrounding tenants (with, for example a garage, a gym and a roof top terrace), sell for a lower rent to bring a more diverse group of citizens to the city, and create the need for more museums, libraries, restaurants, cafés, and the like for people to meet.